


For Safekeeping

by ninemoons42



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Kid Fic, Schoolboys, Valentine's Day, arts&crafts, grade school, self-imposed challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:04:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	For Safekeeping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nieniekoto](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=nieniekoto).



  


title: For Safekeeping  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
word count: approx. 1730  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
pairing: Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr  
rating: G  
notes: First of a set of five ficlets written for good friends and amazing enablers, as gifts for February 14. This one is for [nieniekoto](http://nieniekoto.tumblr.com), who gave me the following prompt: they're kids, they're supposed to be making Valentine cards for their mothers, and Erik is very enthusiastic about his while Charles is...less so. Erik decides to make him smile by making him a secret Valentine.  
Hope you like this one, sweetie.

  
Erik blinked and looked up from his handful of lace and construction paper, scissors pausing in mid-air.

Everyone else at the table just kept going, and maybe they really hadn’t heard anything: Ororo and Jean at one end, hands dusted with glitter, playing with the little folded-paper stars from the special compartment in Miss Emma’s desk; Hank and Armando and Sean squabbling over the box of crayons; Scott and Alex bent together over an oversized sheet of paper, cutting out the largest heart they could manage.

But Charles sighed again, much more quietly this time, and now his hands were folded in his lap. He had pushed his chair away from the table. He was...unhappy, Erik knew that much. He’d had that particular twist to his mouth since Miss Emma had declared that today they would be having art lessons all day, since Miss Moira had started handing out the scissors and paper and paints. He’d even gone so far as to stop smiling, and that was always a bad thing.

The big problem was that Erik knew why Charles was so sad, and the bigger problem was that he had no idea what to do about it.

Charles was still looking gloomy by the time recess rolled around.

“Sandwich? Can we play outside together or something?” Erik said, trying to pick bits of tacky glue and scraps of lace from his hands.

“No, thank you,” Charles said, and sighed, and stood up. “That’s very nice of you, Erik.”

Erik watched him go out by himself, hands stuffed into his pockets, and then out of curiosity looked at the Valentine card that Charles had been working on. Three perfectly shaped hearts glued one on top of the other, white to red to white. Charles’s handwriting, tall joined-up letters with long loops: _Happy Valentine’s Day, Mother - C._

That was it? Erik only had to look around the table to know that everyone else was going to spend the rest of the day on their paper hearts; he wasn’t even close to halfway through with his Valentine card. Edie loved lace, so she’d get lace, and maybe he’d try to make a butterfly out of a paperclip again, just for her. Edie deserved lots of hearts, lots of pretty things, and Erik would never ever stop trying to make her smile.

Charles came back in with the others after recess and went back to his chair on Erik’s left. He had his favorite book about the sun and the stars and the planets in his hands, and he was reading, quietly, under his breath.

Every time he stopped to sigh, every time he looked like he was about to cry, Erik nudged him with an elbow or with his foot, and thought as loudly as he could, /Don’t stop reading, please?/

Charles looked at him with a curious expression. /I’ve already read this three times today./

“And you’ll read it five or six times more tomorrow, so read it again for me,” Erik said out loud, and added, “Please?”

That got him a strange, weak little smile - but it was still Charles and a smile, two of Erik’s favorite things, and he went back to work, sticking bits of paper lace onto Edie’s Valentine card, to the quiet sounds of Charles reading just for him.

At the end of the day Miss Emma walked around praising everyone’s work; Erik held his breath until she came to him, and then she and Miss Moira clapped their hands appreciatively over the butterfly he had shaped out of three paperclips and two small beads from the bracelet Ororo broke last week. He couldn’t help but grin, all pride and a missing front tooth.

Watching Charles walk out to his big sister Raven with that strange, simple Valentine card made something in Erik’s heart hurt, though. He should have been happy that his best friend had contributed a small paper flower to Edie’s Valentine card - but all he could think of were the sad looks on Charles and Raven’s faces. The two of them holding on to Charles’s paper hearts, smiling sadly at each other, and was Charles trying to wipe away his sister’s tears?

Who was going to tell Charles that he shouldn’t be crying, either?

///

Once Erik got home and presented Edie with her card, it was easy to get swept up in her happiness, in her hugs, and Erik grinned and kissed her cheeks several times, let her kiss him again and again.

At dinnertime they sat down to beef stew and boiled potatoes, and Erik wanted to bask in his mother’s love, wanted to enjoy her excellent cooking - but thinking of Valentine cards made him think of Charles folding the paper flower for Edie, made him think of all the times Charles had joined them here for lunch or dinner and never talked about his family because he was happily asking Edie all kinds of excited questions about hers.

It made him sad, and he wound up frowning at the slice of sour cherry pie that Edie placed on his plate.

“Something wrong?” Edie asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Tell Mama what you’re thinking, Erik.”

“Charles,” he said, and he could be blushing.

“What about him?”

“We were making these Valentine cards in class today.”

“Yes, you told me about it.”

Erik looked up into his mother’s gentle smile. “It was a whole day when Charles didn’t laugh. And all of his smiles were sad, and I think he was crying when he went home.”

Edie frowned, and Erik clambered down from his chair and put his arms around her neck, his cheek against hers.

“Poor dear,” Edie said after a moment. “I wondered why you didn’t say anything about him today.”

“I don’t like seeing him sad,” Erik said, and tried very hard not to sniffle.

After a few moments Edie murmured, “Have you thought about giving him something to make him really smile?”

“Like what?”

Erik pulled away as Edie moved, and carefully picked up the Valentine card he’d made for her. “How about making him something like this?”

And why hadn’t he thought of that?

Erik smiled, just a little, and it made Edie chuckle and ruffle his hair with her warm hands. “Clear the table for me, and I’ll go and get you something to work with, all right?”

It was very late when Erik looked up from what he was doing, and Edie was yawning next to him, but he thought maybe this would be all right? “Mama,” he said, very softly.

“Yes, dear? Oh, but that is lovely,” Edie said, kissing the top of his head.

Erik’s hands hurt from cutting paper and the little bits of cloth that Edie had provided, and he was pretty sure he was still going to be smelling glue on his hands tomorrow in class, but it might be worth it, if this could make Charles smile.

“I’m sure he’ll like it,” Edie whispered reassuringly as she tucked him into bed.

“What if he doesn’t,” Erik muttered, already mostly asleep.

“He will, dear. He will.”

///

Erik stumbled into the classroom bleary-eyed and yawning so hard he thought he’d crack his jaws open.

It was early, and the teachers hadn’t come in yet, and the others were outside playing. But Charles was in his usual place with an empty chair on his right, and Erik almost perked up when he saw Charles waving shyly at him - but then he remembered what he needed to do, and he put his bag down and carefully pulled out the blue box that Edie had given him. “This is for you,” he said, hesitantly, “because you were sad yesterday.”

“Oh, Erik,” Charles said, and there were funny little lines between his eyes, and he looked like he wanted to be worried and wanted to smile at the same time. “You didn’t have to. I was okay, really. And it helped that you asked me to read to you.”

Erik shrugged and put the box in his hands. “It’s from me and Mama.”

Charles placed the box carefully on the table, prising the lid up and putting it aside. And then Erik could see his eyes growing huge with surprise. “Oh - _oh!_ ”

Inside the box, Erik knew, was the card he’d made for Charles: a paper heart cut out of fancy white paper, decorated with little bits of cloth cut into stars and planets, and one of Edie’s old hairpins, which he had reshaped carefully into a star-shaped flower.

But Charles was tackling him right out of the chair, and they were both suddenly on the floor, and there were arms around his neck, and Charles was laughing but Erik’s shirt was getting wet.

“Erik, Erik, Erik,” Charles was saying, both in Erik’s head and into his collar. “It’s beautiful. You’re amazing, Edie is amazing, but especially you. Oh, oh, thank you.”

“Do you like it?” Erik asked, very worried and very afraid.

“Of course I do, silly,” Charles said, and then he was getting up. There was dirt on his sleeves and on his shirt pockets now, from knocking Erik down, but he didn’t seem to notice; his face was all red, and he was smiling so widely that Erik thought his face must be hurting, and there were tears in his eyes. “And I really _really_ like it when you smile, too. I want you to smile all the time. It makes you look good. I like looking at you when you smile. So...I’ll smile at you, I’ll smile because you asked me to. Okay?”

“Okay.” Erik smiled and ducked his head, and dug in his pockets for his battered handkerchief, handing it to Charles.

It was Erik’s turn to be embarrassed when Charles spent the rest of the day showing off his Valentine card to everyone, including Miss Emma and Miss Moira and Raven, but every time he remembered the message in it he had to smile and be happy because Charles was happy, because he’d made Charles happy.

[Next day Charles brought roses to school, two large bunches - one for Erik and one for Edie, and Erik had never received flowers before, and he couldn’t help but smile, and stick to Charles’s side like glue.]  



End file.
